1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to artificial teeth which can be arranged easily when making a dental prosthetic appliance and are easy in mastication when wearing it as dentures.
2. Description of the Related Art
Arrangement of artificial molar teeth when making a dental prosthetic appliance required advanced skill and experience. In particular, it was difficult to arrange the adjacent teeth in an appropriate positional relation. Specifically, in dentures, the artificial teeth to be arranged in six degrees of freedom (position and angle) must be arranged at specified positions, and the dentures must be made for individual patients. It was, however, extremely difficult to arrange the teeth in specified positions on the upper and lower jaws, or arrange the adjacent teeth in specified positions. In conventional artificial teeth, accordingly, in order to obtain an ideal mastication, it was necessary to do a large amount of grinding after the arrangement, or change a surface condition largely.
JP-A-2002-177301 discloses artificial molar teeth in which a lingual cusp, a buccal cusp, and a fossa are formed on the occlusal surface of upper molar teeth, and a lingual cusp, a buccal cusp, and a fossa are formed on the occlusal surface of lower antagonist molar teeth. In these artificial molar teeth, at the central occlusal position, the upper molar teeth and the lower antagonist molar teeth are configured so that the lingual cusp of the upper molar teeth may occlude and contact with the fossa of the lower antagonist molar teeth, and that the buccal cusp of the lower antagonist molar teeth may occlude and contact with the fossa of the upper molar teeth.
In the artificial molar teeth of JP-A-2002-177301, when making the dentures, it is easy to arrange in the wax alveolar ridge and adjust the occlusion by grinding or the like. Also when using the dentures, the dentures are stable without being inverted. In the masticatory efficiency including grinding, chewing, and cutting of food, an occlusion close to a full balanced occlusion is obtained. It is also easy to change to a lingualized occlusion not only when making the dentures but also when correcting the dentures.
However, in the artificial molar teeth of JP-A-2002-177301, since the positions of the cusp and the fossa of antagonist molar teeth are limited, and it is hard to identify the positions of the cusp and the fossa at the time of arrangement, the artificial teeth cannot be easily arranged in normal arrangement positions. As a result, a normal mastication may not be obtained, and adjustment by grinding or the like after arrangement may be needed.